Chaos in Jeopardy
by bg Roman
Summary: The ODS team travels to exotic Azerbaijan to carry out a simple spy operation but the routine mission suddenly becomes complicated when the new guy, Rick Martinez, mysteriously disappears.
1. The Port of Baku, Azerbaijan

Chaos in Jeopardy: Chapter 1: The Port of Baku, Azerbaijan

Rick woke and popped his eyes open with a start. Clad only in a undershirt and boxers, he was ice cold sitting in his darkened room in a sleazy hotel at a narrow desk below an unshuttered open window. His head still lay on his hands, wrapped around the pair of binoculars he had been looking through, the last thing he could remember doing. Twenty-four hours straight he had been sitting at this desk watching intently the movement of everyone and everything into and out of the bustling strategic port of Baku, just below the window, on a peninsula jutting into the Caspian Sea, 300 miles due north of Tehran.

Cool clammy air wafted over him, carrying with it the clamor of the jostling ships at dock, the frigid night air intensifying the clanking and rattling of the chains, the rhythmic slop, slop, slop of the oily water against the creaking docks, the drunken shouts, and reedy flutes piping intricate Turkish melodies over the thumping beat of drums rising from the decrepit bars that lined the lane below. He'd had his binoculars trained on the ships and the cargo, and on the tattooed muscular men who wove and stumbled across the lane from bar to bar propelled by tawdry harlots with a loose grip on their morals and a tight grip on their purses.

The room's only illumination was the garish yellow glare from cheap helium street lamps. How long had he been asleep? His arms tingled and a painful sensation of pins and needles flooded his senses as he regained awareness and memory of his unaccustomed surroundings. Just as he was about to jump up and shake his arms to restore their blood flow, he froze instead. Could he hear someone breathing?

A puff of dank sea air lifted a discarded chocolate-bar wrapper and it skittered across the desk and fluttered against his finger. Rick heaved a silent sigh of relief, guessing the spooky breathing sound was merely a figment of his half asleep brain. Then he hesitated and froze again, perceiving an unexpected odor in the room, something different that he could not explain. The odor wasn't the smell of diesel fumes or rotting fish or the salty sourness of the working-sea air which he had been breathing for two solid days since Casey had delivered him and his luggage to that tiny dingy backroom that just happened to have a spectacular view of the grimy industrial port.

Irritatingly, Casey had gone over and over all of Michael's detailed instructions, which included a free pass to improvise if the situation warranted, like he was some kind of clueless greenhorn. Which, fortunately, he wasn't. And Casey should talk! He wouldn't stop lamenting over his beloved Bengay ointment, confiscated at the airport, as though no local lotions could ever be good enough for his prized and babied muscles. But that kind of mishap would never happen to him because he was prepared! In fact, he had prepared his whole life for this mission. All his youth, he had been scraping together cash to pay for spy studies such as weaponry and languages and applying himself to learning the skills with a single-minded devotion. He was determined that in this operation he would distinguish himself and prove that he was a top-notch member of their team, amply capable of pulling his fair share of the weight.

It was unfortunate that he'd fallen asleep. That was a slip up and he wasn't proud that it had happened.

They'd been sent to Baku, a minor middle-eastern backwater, because the agency had received intelligence of a recent dramatic uptick in the quantity of inorganic fertilizer shipping through the city, and the nature of the chemical ingredients were a sign that pointed an incriminating finger towards bomb manufacture, possibly for use by local terrorist cells to further destabilize the country's weakening political alliances, or possibly for drug cultivation, or a third, rather remote possibility, one much less likely in this particular region, for a laudable interest in increasing food production. His team's task was to investigate the suspicious shipping and to determine what it was about, with the expectation that it wouldn't take more than a couple of days to discover the answer. Was the fertilizer intended for peaceful or nefarious purposes? And if nefarious, to find the answers the usual questions: who, what, where, when, why.

He'd been asleep for a couple of hours, he decided, based on the color of the light - it was well past midnight but not yet approaching dawn. Goose bumps rose on his skin as his intuition warned him that someone was behind him and so he remained face-down, quiet and immobile assessing the curious odor. He strained to listen intently with every fiber of his being focused to the task. Ah ha, he decided, it was just Casey sneaking up on him. He'd come back to check up on him and had slipped into his room unannounced. It would be just like Casey to try to give him a fright, trying to embarrass him for falling asleep on his first solo stake-out. Rick imagined his legs were coiled springs, and tensed his stomach muscles in preparation to twist around and leap up at Casey to show him that he couldn't catch him unprepared. He may not have the Human Weapon's fighting skills but he was small and athletic, and he could pull off moves like a trained dancer. Casey would soon find out that Rick Martinez was not to be trifled with!

But before he moved he suddenly identified the odor - a repugnant mix of garlic, olive oil, tobacco smoke, and something else he couldn't quite pinpoint - and it was not a smell he associated with Casey, that is, not unless Casey had spent the last couple of days staked out in a smoke-house in Italy. Rick crept his fingertips off of the binoculars and towards his torso, towards his gun, slung in a holster near his armpit. He instantly froze again, his stomach turning into a leaden ball, when he heard the sound of a click inches behind his head.

It was the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.

"Don't move," said a voice in perfectly enunciated English. It was the kind of perfect enunciation that a native English speaker would never possess. "Put your hands out where I can see them."

Rick slowly slid his hands on the desk, spreading out his fingers, all the while building an impression of the threat behind him. There was a single man, standing directly behind him and holding a handgun pointed at his head, a man who was very light on his feet, and tall, based on the direction of speech. Therefore slim, skinny even. Who was he? Most likely one of the people of interest to their team, someone that they'd come to Baku to spy on.

Using his unmatchable skill for languages he analyzed the barely perceptible trace of an accent. It was distinctive, but what was it? His mind whirled like a rolodex as he scanned over the possible candidates that his boss, Michael, the notoriously paranoiac over-planner, had drilled into him in preparation for this mission. He'd wondered at the time why he needed to memorize all of them. Why couldn't he just take notes? Now he knew why. But there were too many on the list. He needed to hear more of his speech before he could possibly hope to identify even his country of origin.

"What are you doing?" asked the voice, supplying Rick with a fresh sample of speech to study.

"Bird watching," replied Rick with an ironic tone, hoping to draw out more conversation.

"At night?" said the voice, with a guttural laugh. "No birds around at night."

"Not watching that kind of bird," said Rick with a cynical jauntiness.

The man laughed again, and Rick decided he could hear a definite Germanic note in the laugh. His rolodex of possibilities thinned, cards flying out as he discarded suspects of other nationalities, meanwhile he also considered all the room's possible exit points, the door behind him, the window in front of him, and the adjacent bathroom's window. There was the slight problem of a sheer drop of four floors from the windows to the lane below, but he could deal with that problem when he came to it.

"Who are you?" The man pressed the steely muzzle of the gun against Rick's ear forcing him to bend his neck forward and push his face flat on the desk.

"Thomas Smith." That was Rick's alias for this mission, the name on his passport and other papers he was carrying.

"So ... Tho-mas Smith," drawled the man, making it clear by his tone that he did not for a moment believe it was Rick's real name. "Why are you -"

He cut off his question and growled, releasing the pressure of the gun. Rick heard the scrape of the door opening, lumbering footsteps, and a snorting laugh, as an evidently large and uncouth man entered and observed Rick's awkward position. Another goon, thought Rick, just what he didn't need. A second man, one that was much bigger than the first, was going to make it even harder to slip out of their grasp in one piece. Perhaps he could make his move now, he wondered, should he spring into action while the first man was distracted by the second man?

"Don't move," said the man, turning his attention back to Rick. An increase in pressure made the gun's muzzle bite painfully into Rick's ear, and he squished his face onto the desk's cold polished surface.

Rick felt the goon's powerful hands pat him down and then pull his gun out of his holster. Damn it, thought Rick, he'd missed his one golden opportunity. Did he have a hope of another one as good as that presenting itself?

Rick thought of his teammates: Michael, his megalomaniac boss, who thought this trivial assignment in nowheresville was punishment for badmouthing Higgins over the rat incident, staking out the airport; and Billy, the scruffy-faced Scot, who thought he was God's gift to women-kind, staking out the train station; and Casey, the prickly gym-rat, who always thought first of his own comfort, acting as a roving gardener - cultivating contacts, sowing rumors, and planting bait.

How could he alert his teammates? He'd been out of touch with them for almost two days. What were they doing now? How could he let them know he needed their help? He had no cell phone, his only method of contact was by using the room's land-line to leave them coded messages. That was part of the plan, they were working completely independently with a minimum of cross talk.

The goon picked up Rick's passport from the desk and handed it to the man with the gun.

"What are you doing in Baku?"

"Business," replied Rick. "Nothing you'd be interested in."

"Really?" said the man skeptically. "I doubt that."

"Check my luggage," said Rick.

Michael had made the agency supply Rick with a full complement of business gear tailored to his cover story: business cards, product samples, product literature, and the like. Say whatever else you might about Michael, by far the agency's most abrasive loose cannon, no one would dispute he was a meticulous and thorough strategist.

Rick heard the man grunt and the goon lifted the bag onto the bed, unzipped it, and pulled everything out. Both men grunted. Rick was hoping they'd start to converse in their native tongue since that would help him to identify them, but unfortunately the second man remained mute.

"This is an odd hotel for a business man to choose, isn't it?" said the man, flipping opening the passport. "I can't see."

The goon stopped pawing through the things on the sagging bed, stepped to the door, flicked the switch lighting the single pallid bulb hanging from the pitted damp ceiling. Rick heard the first man flipping through his passport. The false passport - the photo, the name, the stamps in it - were all done to an exceptional quality, a high enough quality to fool an expert with a magnifying glass and bright illumination.

"You've got the wrong man," said Rick. "I'm not who you're looking for. Someone gave you bad info."

"I don't think so ...Tho-mas Smith." The man drawled and grunted again, evidently not fooled by the fake passport, evidently someone even more knowledgeable of American passports than an expert. "But I'm looking at your photo and I don't recognize this face. And I know every one of you. Isn't that strange?"

"That's because I'm not who you think I am," said Rick, adding flippantly, "or I'm the new guy. One or the other. "

Rick's voice was steady but he shook inside. There is a first time for everything, he assured himself, this was nothing worse than what had happened at one time or another to Michael, Casey, or Billy. Still he took a moment to pray he'd live long enough to grow out of the new guy title. Forcing his mind back to the task at hand, he concluded that the man's faint accent was definitely Germanic, and, taken together with what he already knew, that left only one card in his mind's rolodex. One card for a tall, slim, German man with impeccable English. He mentally scanned the index card, bringing every one of its meager number of details fresh into his mind.

"Well, Tho-mas, you must be the new guy and perhaps I should explain to you what is going to happen next."

"Sure," replied Rick, adopting a light breezy tone despite the fact he was sitting in his underwear, unarmed, his face flat on the desk and his hands spread out, with the loaded gun of a well-known freelance assassin pressed menacingly against the back of his head.

Forcing himself to breathe normally, Rick said distinctly, "What did you have in mind, Fritz?"

The goon guffawed loudly from surprise that Rick had identified his captor without even seeing him, and the sound of the laugh confirmed for Rick that he had gotten it right.

"Halten!" yelled Fritz, cursing the goon in fluent German. Then he said to Rick, "Bah, lucky guess."

Ha! Rick thought triumphantly, the man thought he'd just guessed the name Fritz because he was German, and, certainly, it was true that Fritz was a common German name, in fact so common that in some of its regions you could walk into a bar, yell out the name Fritz, and more than a third of the men would look up. But Rick knew exactly which Fritz was standing behind him. At the agency they called him Fritz the Rottweiler.

The thought of falling into Fritz's hands made cold drops of sweat prick into the back of his neck. Using a series of minute inconspicuous movements, Rick rubbed his fingertip onto his forehead to pick up some sweat, and traced the letters F and R onto the desk's polished wood top. Although the letters were invisible to the naked eye under ordinary light, the sweat marks under an ultraviolet light would stand out as plain as if he'd written them with black ink on white paper. All they had to do was to examine the desktop under ultraviolet light to see his message. And that was something his teammates would definitely do if they found him lying in this room with his head blown off.

"Well, Tho-mas, you're going to get dressed and we're going to go for a little car ride. Then you're going to have a little talk with my boss. He wants to ask you a few questions. You can stand up now. Slowly. Slowly."

The pressure of the gun was released. Rick's arms were tingling and aching and he rejoiced at the opportunity to escape from his cramped position. He felt enormous relief from having the gun withdrawn from his head. Slowly and carefully, he rose to a standing position, flexing his arms to stop them from shaking, and turned around.

"Aussteigen," snapped Fritz to his goon. He spoke rapid-fire German ordering him to get out because the room was too small for the three of them to stand in comfortably.

German wasn't one of Rick's best languages but he had a serviceable level of it. But despite fully comprehending the exchange, his face wore a bewildered look, so as to give the impression he did not understand German.

In the back of his mind, Rick wondered if he was taken away by Fritz how long it would take for Michael, Casey, and Billy to notice he was missing and to come and search the room. Once they knew that Fritz the Rottweiler was involved they would realize they were onto something big! At least his disordered luggage would tip them off that his departure was not due to him improvising, but instead meant that something was wrong.

"Get dressed," said Fritz, waving his gun towards the clothes on the bed. "And pack up."

"Time for a shower?" said Rick, smiling and rubbing his hand across his spiky black hair. There was still the window in the bathroom. "Don't want to meet your boss with bed head."

"No time," answered Fritz. "Hurry up."

Rick quickly pulled on trousers and a dress shirt thinking it'd be better to escape fully clothed anyway, and, once dressed, gestured a hand towards the bathroom, raising his eyebrows.

"No," repeated Fritz, in answer to his unspoken question.

"Come on, have a heart," said Rick. "Can't you see you're scaring the crap out of me?"

"Ha ha, funny guy," said Fritz humorlessly. "Pack up, we're taking everything with us."

Rick obediently tossed everything back into the suitcase, zipped it up, and carried it to the doorway. He glanced back longingly at the window and towards bathroom. He was in no hurry to open the door and come face to face with the goon again. He assessed his options. It would be one against one but there was another man only a door's width away, and his opponent had a gun, cocked, and pointed right at him. No, without the element of surprise it'd be suicide, he didn't stand a chance. He had to cooperate.

While Fritz yanked his arms behind his back, threading and fastening a cable tie tightly around his wrists, Rick glanced around the hotel room, examining it as a trained expert would, concerned that nothing besides his invisible letters remained to tell the others that he was in trouble and being forcibly taken away. How would they know? He knew they would stop at nothing to find him, they had demonstrated their loyalty and dedication before, but how would they know that he needed them? How would they know where to find him? How would they know to look for his message on the desk?

An unsettling thought crossed his mind. Maybe he was just one of the items of bait that Casey had planted around the city? Certainly Casey had been very careful, even frisking him before he left, to make sure his cover as Thomas the business man was perfect. Was this a part of some bigger plan they didn't tell him? Did they not trust him with the whole story? Did they not trust him to wait patiently for the snake to slink out of its hiding place, without tricking him into it? But if that was the case, did it mean that he himself was under surveillance now? No matter what, he was determined to live up to, no - more than that, he was determined to exceed, their expectations.

But - what were their expectations? Was he meant to escape, now that Fritz had shown himself, or was he meant to go to Fritz's boss, to find out who he was, to find out what he was up to, to lead them to him? The questions zipped in staccato bursts through his brain, distracting him like fireworks and explosions, as his gaze flitted around the room and he tried to puzzle out the best course of action.

"Walthur, kommen in," demanded Fritz and the goon opened the door. He grabbed the suitcase and hauled it through the doorway. Fritz flicked off the light and stepped behind Rick, crowding behind him, the doorknob clasped in his hand.

It was now or never, his last chance, thought Rick, and he twisted suddenly, shoving the man forward, banging his and Walthur's elbows painfully into the metal doorjamb. A sharp blow to an elbow can disable a man temporarily. And, as they fell writhing into the hallway, Rick kicked at Walthur, struggling to regain his footing, kicking and wriggling towards the fire exit, struggling to get himself upright. But before he could get free of the goon's iron grip Fritz brought the gun down on hard across Rick's face knocking him sprawling onto the hallway's filthy threadbare carpet. The goon quickly regained control, yanking Rick to his feet, and shoving him and his baggage, towards the back staircase.

No one heard the ruckus in the hallway, or, if they did, they didn't dare come out to interfere.

Rick trudged quietly ahead of them to the staircase, the muzzle of the gun jabbing painfully into the bruises forming on his back, watching the cherry red beads of blood grow on his scraped arm, satisfied that the injuries were a small price to pay for what he had just left for Michael, Billy, and Casey. Without his captors being aware of it, he'd placed an unmistakable message, a clear cry for help – in the form of his skin and blood on the hotel room doorjamb - and not only was some of his own DNA left behind, but some of Walthur's, to boot. Now began the nagging worry of whether the hotel's abysmal housecleaning might suddenly improve and erase his clues before his teammates had a chance to find them.


	2. The Road through the Caucasus Mountains

Chaos in Jeopardy: Chapter 2: The Road through the Caucasus Mountains

"Michael, I'm hanging over the edge here," growled Billy through clenched jaws, staring wide-eyed out the sleek scarlet-red rental car's passenger window at the road's narrow shoulder. The lane hung over a sheer rock cliff covered with hunched shaggy pines. Billy could see all the way down to the pale blue river, opaque from glacial silt, well below the road at the base of the canyon.

Ignoring Billy's pleas to slow down, Michael smiled and swung the car's wheel into the curve and gunned it, accelerating up the narrow road, which zigzagged as it climbed the steep valley, pushing the powerful car higher and higher into the mountainous terrain of the Caucasus Mountains north of Baku.

"Come on, slow this brawny brute down!" Billy's knuckles turned white as he tightened his grip on the passenger door's handle and futilely pressed his foot to the floor. His ears popped from the rapid ascent and his stomach churned from him being thrown side to side.

"You're a worse traveler than Casey," said Michael, his keen eyes straining to see several curves ahead.

"Huh, I am not," exclaimed Billy. "Do you remember that time after flying through the storm, he vowed he'd never set foot in a turbo-prop again? A wee lassie has more guts than Casey!"

"Of course I remember, he _kissed_ the tarmac!" Michael laughed recalling his astonishment to see Casey's rare moment of weakness. "Yeah, and so now you have Casey's lassie guts too?"

"It doesn't help Rick to get ourselves killed!" Billy gripped the dashboard and added in his thickest Scottish brogue, "I'm just being _sensible_."

Michael and Billy had left the city of Baku behind them hours ago in hot pursuit of Casey, who was on motorbike in hot pursuit of the white panel van carrying Rick, who had been kidnapped and was being transported along this road into the mountains.

On the other side of the mountain range lay Russia to the north and Armenia to the west. They thought the van was headed to one country or the other, and, despite bringing a briefcase full of documents, the border crossing was bound to be tricky. Not that they couldn't handle it, they were confident they could, but, unfortunately, in addition to that challenge, Rick's GPS tracker was not working.

"Stop fussing," said Michael. "Everything's going according to plan."

"Almost according to plan," retorted Billy. "Except for the fact the GPS is busted or ..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, ... or, they found it," said Michael, "and broke it."

"We're right bastards," said Billy, smiling, thinking of the search Rick must have been subjected to for them to find the GPS tracker on him. Billy thought of the kidnapping and the search as just another hazing joke for the new guy.

"Who thought they'd go this far? Losing them the only mistake we can make and I'm not going to make it. I don't want Higgins to find out I messed this up."

Knowing it was useless to argue with Michael when he was bothered about Higgins, Billy gazed out at the extraordinary beauty all around him, the shining sun in the cloudless azure sky, the picture-postcard views, and breathed in the cool fresh mountain air. If they weren't in the middle of a high speed chase after an unknown opponent who had kidnapped Rick, he would welcome a day driving the sporty car through these rugged snow-capped mountains.

Swerving nimbly around the many pot-holes and fallen rocks that littered the road from the cliffs above, Michael wove back and forth, easily overtaking all the rusting utilitarian Russian vehicles slowed by the road's steep grade, pushing the engine to its limit.

After rounding a blind curve they suddenly saw Casey standing beside his motorbike at the cliff's edge, waving both arms to stop them. Michael jammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt behind him.

"What's he doing?" said Billy, glad to stop, even if only for a moment. "Did he run out of gas?"

As soon as the car was parked, Michael and Billy jumped out and ran over to Casey.

"What's wrong?" asked Michael. "Why did you stop?"

"He's down there!" cried Casey, pointing down the hillside at a some broken pine trees. In the distance below them they saw a barely visible white van skidding through the forest and rolling towards the river.

"Oh no!" gasped Michael, and the three stared horrified as the van sped down the hillside, all three fearing that the van's occupants would not survive the violent and rapid descent. They watched as the van slowed its pace at the valley's base. They desperately hoped that it would snag on a rock or a bush before breaching the river's edge, but the van continued to roll forward propelled by momentum.

All three held their breaths watching it approach the riverbank where it teetered, almost pausing for a moment, and then, agonizingly slowly, it slipped into the water. The van rolled a few feet into the water and began to float, gently bobbing on the surface like a cork, held back from drifting out into the swift flowing river by tree branches.

As soon as the van hit the water Casey jumped over the barrier at the edge of the cliff.

"Stop!" shouted Michael, pulling out his cell phone. "You'll get yourself killed. Casey, just wait." Michael punched a number into the phone. "Just wait!" He covered his ear, turned his back to the pair and the traffic noise, and spoke into his phone.

"Can't wait!" cried Casey, and he began to climb down the steep slope. "It's my fault. I've got to get him out of there before it goes under!"

As Casey clambered swiftly down the hillside, Billy followed, shouting at him over the clatter of falling rocks and snapping of brittle branches, "What happened? Were they going too fast? Were you crowding them?"

"No! I mean, I didn't think so," said Casey, panting as he hopped and stumbled, grabbing onto branches, half-falling and half-running down the steep rocky slope. "I just lost sight of it for a second and then I rounded that corner and saw ... oh no!"

Casey and Billy paused to stare at the van as it floated a few feet out from the bank, pushed by the current, trapped in tree branches that were bending under the strain.

Casey stood as close to the bank's edge as he could go, frustrated and eager to dive into the icy river, surveying the rocky gorge and the plume of mist rising from a waterfall only a few dozen yards downstream.

"Are you sure Rick's in it?" asked Billy, reaching the spot a few seconds after Casey.

"Yes, I saw them put him in it!" Casey unzipped and peeled off his leather biker jacket, unbuckled his bullet-proof vest, and tore off his t-shirt. "It's the one I've been trailing for hours!"

"You're not going in!" exclaimed Billy. "The water's cold as ice, you'll go hypothermic in seconds!"

"I have to try," said Casey, shirtless, squatting to unlace his heavy boots. "It's my fault!"

"It's not safe," said Billy, grabbing Casey's arm and pulling him. "They're armed!"

"They'll be knocked out," cried Casey, shrugging off Billy's grip and yanking off his boots and socks.

Casey grabbed a branch and jumped down into the rushing river. His feet cramped painfully from the bitterly cold water, his yells of agony drowned out by the rush of the raging torrent. White sprays splashed off dozens of jutting rocks as the river narrowed towards a waterfall. He strode forward until the water was above his knees, his leather biker-pants soaked and clinging to his legs slowing him down. The van was only a few more yards away, held tenuously by the branches. He feared at any moment it would burst free and float out into the treacherous current.

"Stop," called Billy. "It's too dangerous!"

Casey kept wading despite the biting pain from the icy water. His legs would soon be numb and useless, he needed to move quickly.

The van was pushed by the current and whirlpools farther downstream, slowly escaping the branches one by one, always staying a few feet ahead of Casey, bobbing ever more violently, and just as the water level rose to the bottom of its windows it broke free of the remaining branches and drifted into the swift current, picking up speed, heading rapidly towards the waterfall.

Gripping a rock, frustrated and helpless, Casey cursed and pounded the waist deep water with his fist, watching the swift current carry the van out of his reach, very close to being swept away himself.

"Come back," cried Billy, pulling off his jacket, getting ready to wade in, fearing Casey would fall unconscious in the frigid water and be torn to bits on the jagged rocks or drowned by the waterfall. It was bad enough to lose Rick, he didn't want to lose Casey too.

Michael had sprinted down after them and just that moment reached the shoreline. He bent over, hands on his thighs, gasping for breath.

Pausing on each word to suck in a lung-full of air, Michael yelled, "Come. Back. Right. Now!"

Casey turned and waded back to the shore, at every step stopping to peer over his shoulder at the floating van, crushed that he hadn't reached it in time to get Rick out. Just as he neared the bank, his legs gave out and he stumbled, landed on his knees, and fell face first into the water. Michael and Billy grabbed him by his arms and dragged him out of the water. Exhausted and numb, Casey was unable to move, his feet bright scarlet and legs nearly frozen.

As they watched the sinking van in horror, it snagged on a submerged rock, tilted on its side, only barely visible above the waves. They were frantic, wondering if Rick might still be alive, wondering if he was about to be drowned, wondering if he was screaming for their help.

Suddenly a thunderous pounding thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack reverberated off the canyon walls and a search-and-rescue helicopter appeared around a cliff, a bright yellow angel in the blue sky.

"There's an army base nearby," Michael yelled over the helicopter's deafening rotor blades. "As soon as Higgins realized Rick was in peril, he started pulling strings."

"You told Higgins?" asked Billy.

"Of course," shouted Michael. "Rick's in trouble."

The three watched as the helicopter hovered over the van and a soldier with a set of grappling hooks was lowered by cable. But, just as he got close to it, the van sank below the surface. Suddenly there was nothing for him to attach the hooks to.

Michael, Billy, and Casey gasped and groaned as the helicopter lifted sharply and wheeled in the air. The soldier was hoisted back up into the helicopter.

"They'll have divers," yelled Michael, praying fervently that they would deploy them immediately for a rescue attempt, and not later for a recovery operation.

Soon the helicopter circled around and dipped to the point directly over where the van had been, hovering a few feet above the surface of the river. One after the other, three black-suited and masked scuba-divers jumped out of the helicopter and into the icy current. Each diver held a grappling hook, and they pulled on it, dragging its cable with them below the waves.

"I can't believe this," cried Casey. "He won't make it. It's too cold! It's my fault."

"No, it isn't your fault," comforted Billy, pulling the t-shirt onto Casey. "You did everything you could. It is risky work. Rick knew the risks when he joined the agency. Dammit, if he doesn't make it I'll miss the little Mexicano. It won't be the same without him."

"The little _Puerto Rican_," snapped Michael, despondent. "Can't we get at least _one_ thing right today?"

The hovering helicopter 's blades flattened the ice-blue water where the three divers had disappeared, beating out a spray of white froth, and the three cables tethering the helicopter to the divers hung slack in the middle.

The seconds ticked by, each one seeming like an hour.

Billy grabbed Casey around the waist while Michael tugged and yanked on his clinging drenched leather pants, peeling them off. Then Billy and Michael slapped and rubbed Casey's legs and feet, to warm them and restore blood flow. Stoically, Casey bit his lip, hiding the excruciating pain he suffered, as his traumatized nerves regained sensation.

"I gave Rick four chocolate bars," said Casey sadly. Drops of water from his wet hair trickled down his exhausted face and neck making black streaks on his t-shirt. "That's all I had left. It was the last thing I did for him."

"You did your best," reassured Michael, massaging Casey's toes. "You almost got yourself drowned."

"They have to get to the van before it vanishes into the depths," said Casey. "Mountain rivers are notoriously difficult to search."

"Yes, the only thing worse than a dead man," said Billy, "is a dead man whose body is missing. Good god, who will tell his mother?"

"Ah, the mother of Asopao soup fame," said Michael. "Higgins volunteered to inform Rick's mother."

Billy and Casey looked at Michael in surprise.

"Higgins?" said Billy. "Not you?"

"Apparently they're friends," said Michael with a puzzled look. "He says he's spoken with her a few times."

"Blimey!" said Billy. "Will wonders never cease."

"I know, it's unbelievable!" Michael shook his head in response to their shocked stares. "I'm surprised Higgins has friends of any kind, and Rick's mother too!"

The three pondered this strange news and continued to stare at the helicopter. As much as the hated it, there was simply nothing else they could do but wait. Billy sat with his arms around Casey, supporting him, and Michael wrapped their jackets around his bare legs to warm him.

Finally, four or five agonizingly long minutes later, the divers surfaced, all three heads bobbing on the sparkling blue water like black balloons.

Billy, Casey, and Michael stared at the divers, transfixed, trying to divine whether they had found anything or not.

A diver raised his hand to signal the pilot and the divers dispersed, swimming outwards from the point where the cables entered the water. The helicopter rose very slowly until the cables pulled taut, then it rose even more slowly, pulling up on the cables.

They watched as the roof of the van broke the surface, then the whole vehicle appeared, curtains of water pouring from its windows and doors, splashing back into the river.

At the sight of the van, Billy and Michael jumped up and cheered.

The helicopter flew towards them bringing the van with it, dripping and swinging below it, to the shoreline.

"That's it!" screamed Casey, struggling to get to his feet. "Those are the plates."

Billy, Michael, and Casey, ignoring the cuts to his bare legs and feet, scrambled over the riverbank's sharp rocks and gravel to the approaching van, and, as soon as it was within reach, they swarmed on it, yanking on the door handles.

Michael pried open the driver's door, grabbed the driver and hauled him out. The soaking wet man fell limply on the ground. Dead. Drowned.

Billy and Casey pulled open the back doors and jumped in.

Rick wasn't there. The van was empty.

Panting and perplexed, Billy and Casey jumped out.

"He's not there!" cried Casey, shivering violently, oblivious to his scratched and bleeding legs and feet.

"What the hell?" shouted Michael, grabbing Casey and shaking him. "Where is he?"

"I don't know!" cried Casey. "I don't understand!"

"Well, just thank god he's not in there," said Billy, wrapping Casey in his jacket. "Because otherwise, he'd be drowned too!"

An hour later, Michael, Billy and Casey - dried off, bandaged, and dressed warmly - were in the red sports car arguing about what to do next. Michael was sitting in the driver's seat, Billy in the passenger seat, and Casey was curled up under a pile of blankets in the cramped backseat.

All three puzzled over and discussed every detail of the trip up from Baku trying to figure out when Rick had been switched to another vehicle and how long they had been tailing the wrong one. They decided that the switch must have been made at a village they had just passed through because it was the only time Casey had lost sight of the van for more than a few moments.

They supposed that the empty van was meant to trick them into crossing the wrong border, which could throw them off the trail for days. The situation wasn't as bad as that, since he couldn't be more than a few hours away, but they had no idea which way or how to find out.

Typical of Michael's leadership style, before deciding what to do next, he asked his teammates for their opinions.

Casey wanted to drive back to Baku and search Rick's hotel room for clues. Billy wanted to go to the army base and search the dead man and the van for clues. Michael wanted to continue driving through the mountains, expecting Higgins to receive intelligence from the Armenian or Russian border before they had to decide which way to go.

"It's hours to Baku," reasoned Michael. "We'll waste a lot of time driving completely the wrong way if we go back there."

"Rick was watching the port for two days," said Casey. "He might have seen something and left some kind of hint."

Michael frowned. "The local police are on the scene and they already searched the hotel room."

"What did they find?" asked Casey. "Tell me about it."

"They taped it off," said Michael. "They had a look around but didn't touch anything. They said there was absolutely nothing there - only a few discarded candy wrappers."

"What kind of candy?" asked Casey, alert and listening intently. "How many wrappers?"

"He didn't notice."

"You see?" Casey grunted. "He didn't even notice the candy wrappers! _Pathetic! _This is exactly the kind of incompetent detective work you'd expect from these small-town lackeys."

Michael snorted. "Candy wrappers?"

"They might be a clue!" said Casey. "_We_ have to search it. I know exactly what that room looked like when I left him there. If Rick left us any clues we'll have to find them ourselves."

"The army base is right nearby," said Billy. "We should search the van and the corpse, they're far more likely to have clues than candy wrappers!"

"Yes, we could go to the army base," agreed Michael. "Even just the registration of the van and the identity of the driver could be crucial."

"The army can find that out," countered Casey, "they can do it better than us. But any other clues, the subtle ones, will have been washed away. No, what we have to do is search the hotel room."

"If we travel back to Baku," said Michael, "and then get word from the border, it'll take us hours to drive back up here."

"Then let me go by myself," said Casey, pushing back the blankets and struggling to sit up. "On the motorbike."

"You're in no fit state," said Michael. "Sorry, no can do, buddy."

"Then we'll drive down and fly back," said Casey. "That's the fastest way."

"But they only have turbo-props," warned Michael. "Baku has the smallest airport in the world."

Casey gulped. "A turbo-prop will be fine then, if that's all there is."

Amazed, Michael and Billy stared at him and then exchanged a glance.

"Okay, then," said Michael, popping the car into gear and cranking the steering wheel around sharply. "I can see you're convinced we have to go back, so Baku it is."

Michael swerved the car around turning it downhill, pulled into traffic, and stomped on the gas. Soon he was weaving the car in and out of the lanes, racing around the curves, and speeding recklessly past the slower traffic.

"Michael, you're driving this lively beauty like my grandmother," said Billy, gripping the door handle firmly. "Can't you give her a bit more petrol?"

"Dammit, this mission is a disaster!" Michael slapped the steering wheel and revved the engine hard. "It was supposed to be a piece a cake and we have nothing. We haven't a clue who we're chasing or where they're going. No! We have less than nothing ... we've _lost_ _Rick!_"

"Come on, look on the bright side," said Billy. "At least Rick's not dead."

"Yeah, " said Casey morosely, shivering under the pile of blankets in the back seat, "at least ... not that we know of."


	3. The Office of Herr Doktor Professor

Chaos in Jeopardy: Chapter 3: The Office of Herr Doktor Professor

Rick heard a loud knock on the door behind him and turned, his eyes darting backwards towards it, glad of the unexpected interruption. He had been wondering how long he'd be able to endure the interrogation. So far he'd only been roughed up a little, just a few bruises and scrapes, mostly from being manhandled into and out of vehicles on the trip. His shirt and pants were torn and had patches of dried blood, but it wasn't the threat physical torment that worried him, it was the non-stop questioning, the ever-present fear of the unknown, the lengthening passage of time and the lack of sleep, all of these together were conspiring to wear him down. This wasn't training anymore, this was the real deal.

At that moment he was seated before a graying, steely-eyed German man dressed neatly in a somber business suit and tie, the man to whom Fritz the Rottweiler, the notorious assassin, had delivered him hours ago, perhaps days ago. Rick had no watch and he was beginning to lose track of time. The mere fact that this man, of whom he knew little, had hired Fritz the Rottweiler to kidnap him marked him as a person of significant interest to the CIA. Rick's aim was to discover all he could about him while revealing nothing about himself.

How long would he be able to keep up the fiction of being Thomas Smith, the business man? How long could he hide his CIA connection? This is what he needed to do, these were his instructions, and he was determined to follow them to the letter. Rick rubbed his bloodshot eyes and looked at the closed door. Who was knocking? Who was behind it?

Where was he? Why was he there? Who were his captors? And what did any of this have to do with the shipping of fertilizer through Baku? He had so many questions but they refused to answer them. And he refused to answer theirs. A stalemate. The guards called his interrogator Herr Doktor Professor. Any non-German had to wonder at their crazy fondness for honorifics, he thought, but the man at the desk was evidently the master mind, the big cheese, the head honcho, the evil genius at the top.

Turning back, he saw the stern-faced man's piercing ice-blue eyes studying him, his thin boney hands resting on the huge polished desk. The dark mahogany monument, the largest piece of furniture in the office by far, was illuminated by a soft pool of light from a reading lamp. The surrounding book cases, crammed with thick binders and scientific journals, were half in shadow, the German writing on them illegible, and the walls, decorated with framed art and elaborately carved paneling, were scarcely visible. Four armed guards in military uniforms stood directly behind him, stationed by the door. He saw no windows, no natural light, no possibility of escape.

"Come, come, now," said the Doktor soothingly in English tinted with a strong German accent. "There is no use continuing to pretend to be Thomas Smith. We know there is no such man. You're only delaying the inevitable. I will know your identity in a moment anyway. Won't you cooperate?"

Rick stared at the Doktor impassively, lips firmly closed.

"Your silence is merely an annoyance," he said menacingly. "I assure you, it is not in your best interest to annoy me. You have only endangered yourself by this delay. And anyone foolish enough to try to find you."

The Doktor gestured with his hand and one of the guards opened the door.

Fritz the Rottweiler entered the room clasping a slim beige folder to his chest.

"Herr Doktor Professor," said Fritz obsequiously in a nervous voice. Rick was surprised to see a sheen of sweat on Fritz's brow and his hands fumbling with the folder. Fritz was a pretty tough cookie, thought Rick, there must be something really wrong. Yes! A surge of excitement flowed through him. Maybe help was finally on the way! Michael, Billy, and Casey would never give up looking for him and they were the best of the best.

"Ja?" said the Doktor, straightening up and eyeing Fritz, drumming his fingers on the desk impatiently.

Fritz gulped and placed the file folder on the desk, answering him in German, "This just arrived, sir."

The Doktor opened the cover of the folder and carefully scanned over the paper inside. Rick tried to read it upside down, but all he could determine was that it was a computer printout.

"What is this?" barked the Doktor with a black scowl. Although Rick could understand German, he kept his face in a perplexed look, as he had been doing whenever they spoke in German to fool them into thinking he couldn't understand it.

"The report," replied Fritz.

The Doktor jumped up from his chair and stepped close to Fritz. "This is not what I expected!"

As they argued in hushed German, Rick prayed that Fritz was relaying news of a CIA rescue operation. He trusted his teammates and knew that they'd come through for him. He was excited to see their heated discussion, but he didn't show it.

The Doktor, obviously displeased, sat down at the desk and tapped the folder with an accusing finger.

"These are your DNA test results," he said to Rick in English, glaring at him. "There's a problem."

Dammit, it was not a rescue! Hiding his disappointment, Rick slid his tongue over the roughened patch inside his cheek, directly under his dimple, where a nurse had taken some of his cells with a swab. He had figured that was for a DNA test. They had the results. What did they show that made the Doktor so angry?

"You're no one!" roared the Doktor to Rick.

Rick suppressed a pleased smile, happy that the DNA test didn't identify him.

"If you _are_ no one then why all this charade?" demanded the Doktor.

Rick didn't answer. He had a lot of practice not answering. He had said few words since Fritz had captured him.

"You're incompetent!" said the Doktor to Fritz, switching back to German. "Why did you bring me this pipsqueak? He's a mistake! I specifically requested a CIA operative and you bring me him?"

"He was spying on the port," quavered Fritz. "Watching the ships with binoculars. Exactly as I expected."

Maintaining his blank expression with great effort, Rick puzzled over Fritz's words. _Expected_? What could Fritz possibly mean by that? Perhaps he misheard? No, it was clear. Perhaps he mistranslated? No, he knew the words perfectly. Why would Fritz the Rottweiler say he expected Rick to be spying on the port? Had someone in the CIA leaked the ODS mission to Fritz? He longed for the opportunity to question Fritz privately.

Fritz continued, "He's CIA, definitely. He is clearly, clearly CIA ..." His voice trailed off, "clearly..."

Ricked detected obvious doubt in Fritz's tone. What was going on? It was very strange.

"Perhaps Thomas Smith _is_ just a peeping Tom!" said the Doktor. "Just as he has been saying all along."

"They put him there to confuse us," cried Fritz, struggling to regain his composure. "Deliberately using a guy we couldn't identify."

"Fritz," said the Doktor. "If they know nothing of our scheme, which you have assured me they don't, then why would they go to the effort? It doesn't make sense! You're grasping at straws. And I have been wasting my time on him. When you work for me, you only get to make a mistake once."

"No," shouted Fritz. "He _is_ CIA. He's the new guy and that's why he is not in our database yet."

"Bah! Not in our database," growled the Doktor. "That sounds like an excuse."

"There are thousands of CIA operatives," explained Fritz. "New ones come, old ones go. It is hard to keep our records up to date. We need more staff."

"As usual, begging for more resources," said the Doktor disdainfully. "Perhaps you're right. You can go. I will handle this myself."

Fritz stepped to the door and, with his hand on the doorknob, turned back. "There is something else. Another matter."

"What?" said the Doktor glowering at Fritz. "What now?"

Fritz glanced at Rick.

"Go ahead," said the Doktor, after checking Rick's perfectly uncomprehending expression. "Tell me what it's about."

"It's about Walthur," said Fritz, shaking with nervousness.

Rick knew Walthur. He was Fritz's goon, that one that had helped Fritz kidnap him. Walthur had driven the first van in which Rick had been brought to the Doktor. He hadn't seen Walthur after they switched him to the second van.

"What about him?" said the Doktor dismissively. Walthur was Fritz's man so he was of no significance to him.

"He was driving a van through the Caucasus Mountains," said Fritz. "He was acting as a decoy."

"As per standard procedure," said the Doktor impatiently. "Why are you telling me this?"

"He's disappeared," stammered Fritz, turning pale.

"He has ..." The Doktor looked intently at Fritz, his curiosity piqued. "What?"

"He's vanished," said Fritz. "He hasn't called in. There's been no sign of the van either."

"Your mistake, Fritz, another one," said the Doktor. "Hiring a man that quits and runs off!"

"That's not possible," said Fritz defensively. "Walthur would never risk that. Not a chance. He knows I'd hunt him down."

"He's turned on us! Selling our secrets! Jeopardizing our entire operation."

"Not possible, I guarantee it," cried Fritz. "Walthur knows nothing! And there is absolutely nothing to connect him to me or to you."

"And him?" The Doktor gestured towards Rick.

"That was a clean job," said Fritz. "A perfect extraction. So easy. The idiot was asleep!"

Horribly embarrassed, Rick thought yet again of that awful little detail. That minor slip up caused him a major problem. It could cost him his life.

"Too easy?" asked the Doktor. "A trap?"

"Of course," said Fritz. "But a failure!"

So, they expected a trap, Rick thought. Is that what he was?

"But now," mused the Doktor, "now that we discover that Walthur is gone … it puts a different light on it."

"Listen," said Fritz emphatically, "no one will be able to connect his kidnapping to me, and if they can't connect that to me then you are completely safe from all suspicion."

"I better be," said the Doktor. "That's what I pay you for! But Walthur's disappearance increases my risk. I don't want to, but I shall have to rush my schedule. We'll have to be ready to deploy immediately."

"I am ready," said Fritz proudly. "Whenever you are. You can count on me."

"I wish I could," said the Doktor quietly, "But we can't have our people going missing. It's a mistake, my dear Fritz. Two for you. I can't have that. You understand. This is most unfortunate."

"No, sir," said Fritz, begging him. "Listen! Walthur's disappearance has a perfectly logical explanation, I'm sure of it. You can trust me!"

"I can't. I'm finished with him," said the Doktor to one of the guards. "You know what that means."

Shocked, Rick, who had understood all of their exchange, watched as two of the guards calmly hauled Fritz, stricken with fear and loudly protesting and pleading with the Doktor, out of the room. Shortly after the door closed he heard a gunshot, a single shot and Fritz's voice abruptly ceased. Evidently he would never get an opportunity to question Fritz!

"And you," said the Doktor, smiling at Rick's distressed expression, "are in very great danger as a nobody, much greater than if you were a somebody. You must see that. Who are you? Are you CIA?"

Preparing himself for the worst, Rick glared back and refused to answer.

"It is very lucky for you," said the Doktor, "that I happen to believe you _are_ someone who will be of use to me. You see, the exceptionally high quality of your phony passport gives you away. But I will need you to cooperate. Will you?"

Rick remained silent. He had long since exhausted his supply of ready quips and was too exhausted now to formulate new ones.

"Come with me," said the Doktor, standing up. "I don't have time to find someone else! I will have to work with you. I think I know how to loosen that stubborn tongue of yours."

Trying to look nonchalant , Rick stood up, forcing his protesting nerves to move his bruised and aching legs smoothly.

"Follow me," said the Doktor. "We're going to visit my laboratory."

Noting the alarmed looks on the guards' faces as they fell in behind them, Rick thought, uh-oh, a visit to the laboratory can't be a good thing.


	4. The Police Station in Baku

Chaos in Jeopardy: Chapter 4: The Police Station in Baku

Seated side by side in the cramped evidence room of the local police station in Baku, Billy, Casey, and Michael had removed their jackets and ties, and sat quietly working with their shirt collars unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up, hunched over a stack of binders and documents on the table in front of them.

The previous day they had thoroughly searched Rick's hotel room, examining it with a fine toothed comb, supervising the workers, taking photos and samples, and recording everything possible. Then they had worked through the night reading and analyzing the test results as they came in, following up the leads, making numerous calls, searching various databases, and hunting through everything they could think of to find out his whereabouts.

The grimy windows were propped open permitting the dusty noxious air, buzzing flies, and heat from the harsh mid-day sun into the breathless room. Fatigue caused bags below their eyes, and the underarms and backs of their shirts were darkened and sticky from sweat. But they toiled diligently oblivious to their discomfort from the heat and exhaustion. They were all so focused on the investigation they didn't even notice the jarring cacophony of street sounds from the adjacent busy corner - the incessant honking of car horns and unintelligible shouts and calls by passersby, and the annoying flies crawling on the lids of the half-empty cartons of cold take-out food piled in the center of the table.

They'd mounted the most significant photos and documents on large cork boards covering the gray cinderblock walls. The center piece, the highlight of everything they had discovered so far, the photo they examined over and over, was a picture of the hotel room's desktop under ultra-violet illumination.

The photo showed an eerily distorted image of Rick's face, with palm prints on either side, and above, the initials "F.R." clearly written in his sweat.

They had cheered when the DNA test results identified the sweat as Rick's, and they had been impressed by his ingenuity in helping expose his own kidnapper. Soon after getting those results, another DNA test revealed the presence of Rick's skin and blood on the doorjamb. Yes, they concluded, Rick had purposely left them the clues! Finally they were making progress!

Throughout the long night they had accumulated numerous files and detailed records tracking the recent movements of the every known person in the CIA's database with the initials "F.R." and they had laboriously gone through them item by item. But the work was disheartening because each person they examined was subsequently ruled out since they could not possibly have been in the port of Baku at the time of the kidnapping.

Then they got a fresh burst of energy when the DNA test on the drowned man matched the skin on the hotel room's doorjamb. Jubilant from this news, Billy, Michael, and Casey had jumped up in glee and high-fived each other, encouraged by the definitive proof that the driver of the van was one of the men who had kidnapped Rick.

But to their dismay, after much effort and extensive searching, they could not find the identity of man in any database. The passport found in the van was a fake. He stubbornly remained an unknown person. Was the drowned man the mysterious "F.R."? Maybe. Maybe not. They couldn't know for sure. And worse, the cell phone found in the van, and, in fact all the evidence extracted from the van, took them, eventually, after more precious time was wasted, to similar dead-ends.

Boxes of confiscated records from the port, the shipping schedule and logs of people and goods, coming and going, had been delivered to them and they'd spent hours cross referencing them with the coded messages that Rick had phoned in. Interviews of the hotel employees and anyone in the vicinity at the time of the kidnapping had been translated and given to them and they'd pored over them.

All through the long night, they had read and discussed and compared notes with each other, taking turns at a sluggish and finicky computer, bumping each other's elbows as they pecked away at the ancient keyboard with flagging spirits and increasingly clumsy fingers.

The disappearing leads, the utter lack of progress, the enormous piles of useless documents, the slowness of the computer, the complexity of making phone calls in multiple languages as the leads took them all over Europe, bogged them down and wore them out, until they were completely exhausted and discouraged. As the hours passed by they became more and more desperate to find a promising lead.

Who was F.R.?

Where was Rick?

They seemed no closer to finding him now than they were two days ago when he'd disappeared into thin air in the Caucasus Mountains.

Stifling a yawn, Michael stood up to stretch his legs and said, "We have to leave Baku. The internet service is hopeless and it is taking far too long to do the searches. We've been at this for almost 36 hours straight and we need to take a break."

"I'm not tired," said Billy, flicking a fly off his sweaty forearm. Any amusement he'd felt over Rick's predicament had long since evaporated. "You go. Rick's still out there and I'm not stopping until we find him."

"We should go back to headquarters and continue the search from there," said Michael. "We'll have better equipment. Better helpers. Better everything. We're bound to find him faster there."

"But we'll waste time flying to Langley," countered Billy. "We need to act fast. Rick's in grave danger and hours count."

"How can we be so stumped?" wondered Michael aloud. "How can _we_ be hoodwinked by a lousy two-bit operation in a backwater like Baku? Stealing Rick out from under our noses _and_ without a trace! How?"

"There wasn't a _single_ clue in the van," said Billy, mopping the sweat from his face with his soggy handkerchief. "Unbelievable!"

"And Rick's GPS tracker," said Casey. "How do we explain that? If they found it, why did they break it instead of putting it into the decoy van? If they didn't find it, why did it suddenly stop working just before he left the hotel?"

"Something doesn't add up here," said Michael, rubbing the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "But what?"

"We must be missing something," said Casey. He jumped up and growled loudly as he bent over to stretch out his painfully cramped arm and leg muscles. "Let's start over from the beginning."

Then, as he had done many times before, Casey took the photo of the desktop down from the bulletin board, laid it on the table, and jammed a small loupe into his darkened baggy eye socket. He stared at Billy and Michael with one normal-sized eye and one grossly magnified eye.

"F and R," said Casey, pronouncing each letter distinctly as he pointed to it on the photo, "the letters F and R. Rick wrote them with sweat! They must be significant."

"Why was his face on the desk?" said Michael. "What was happening to him at that moment? Why didn't he write more than F and R?"

With one eye shut and the other enhanced by the loupe Casey leaned over the photo, turning it, and slowly and methodically scanning it from one edge to the other.

"That F almost looks like a seven," said Billy, leaning over Casey's shoulder to point at it.

"What?" said Michael. "Are you dyslexic?"

"I meant the European style," said Billy, "with a slash." Casey rotated the photo upright. "My mistake, it's an F."

"Well, what if they aren't initials?" asked Casey. "What else could they be? Any new ideas? Any more suggestions? Let's brainstorm it again."

"We have to take a break," said Michael as Billy rattled off dozens of words, the names of people and cities and rivers and countries, anything that contained the letters F or R, all the words that they had already thought of, debated, and eliminated.

Michael slipped the photo out from under Casey and pinned it back on the bulletin board and the shadowy image of Rick's grotesque face stared woefully out at them.

"Take a break, " said Michael as Casey glared up at him with his one huge eye. "That's an order!"

"And you, shut up," said Michael to Billy, irritated as he chanted the apparently random words in his thick Scottish burr. "We're running around in circles. Driving ourselves crazy isn't going to help Rick."

"I'm not finished," said Casey frowning. He yanked the pin out of the photo, and laid it back on the table.

"Leave it!" Exasperated, Michael leaned over Casey, reaching for the photo. "This is like taking a bone from a dog!"

"Uh!" Casey jerked his head up and stared at Michael with his one huge eye, and whispered, "It's like what?"

"He said, it's like taking a bone from a dog," said Billy. "Leave it. We need a break."

"A dog!" said Casey, jumping up."That's it!"

"A dog?" asked Michael, peering into Casey's wild face with concern. "Are you alright?"

"Rottweiler," shouted Casey jumping excitedly. The loupe fell from his eye and clattered on the floor. "Rottweiler!"

"And Rottweiler means?" said Billy. "What exactly?"

"Fritz the Rottweiler!" crowed Casey. "That's the F and the R!"


	5. The Laboratory of Herr Doktor Professor

Chaos in Jeopardy: Chapter 5: The Laboratory of Herr Doktor Professor

Ping! The elevator doors slid open at the tenth floor, the top floor of the building. Rick followed the Doktor out, with the four beefy armed guards a step behind them. The door directly ahead was marked with a sign forbidding unauthorized entry, and it, like every door they'd come to, required a swipe of a key card to gain entry.

Inside was a long corridor, lined with scientific equipment and windowed doors, evenly spaced in the neatly painted white walls. Overhead were ceiling tiles, the kind that hid a space above, separating bright fluorescent lights. As they walked past humming refrigerators and whirling centrifuges, their shoes squeaked on the gleaming shiny tiles.

Rick had thought deeply about the Doktor's laboratory, fearing what he would find there. The last thing he expected to see was a real laboratory.

When they reached the first door the Doktor stopped and gestured proudly, inviting Rick to look through the door's window into the room.

"One of my level one labs," said the Doktor. "Do you know much of science?"

"A little." Rick had studied science as part of his preparatory training at the CIA. He had just recently completed a course on nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry. The course covered the world's most dangerous triple-threat, code-named 'NBC'. He wondered if he would be seeing any of those types of weapons on this tour.

"Excellent!" said the Doktor. "Then I can describe to you what I'm developing here."

Peering through the closed, and presumably locked, door into the room, Rick observed long stainless-steel counters cluttered with microscopes, racks of test-tubes, and other miscellaneous items, all the regular assortment of paraphernalia belonging in a modern scientific facility. At the benches stood white-coated scientists wearing safety goggles and lanyards with keycards. Beyond them, on the far side of the room, were exterior windows. The outside!

Rick imagined twisting around, grabbing a gun from the guard behind him, blasting his way through the door, vaulting a lab bench, and leaping out the exterior window. How far down was it? Ten floors. He didn't think past the point where he was outside the building and hurtling through the air, because his attention came back to the problem of the guards behind him. The scientists looked like they'd all scatter and run for cover at the first shot, but the guards definitely didn't. It'd be four on one and he wasn't capable of it. He'd be killed for sure, although that might not be worse than whatever the Doktor was planning for him. But, in any case, he was sure that Michael would want him to stay put and discover what the Doktor was up to before making a break for it.

"And, what are you developing?" asked Rick, forcing his focus back to the Doktor. He had noticed a very distinct odor in the building, the same unidentified odor that he'd detected on Fritz when he was in the hotel room. "Is it something to do with that smell? What is it?"

"No," said the Doktor. "That is hops. The main business of this plant is beer making and this is one of its laboratories. Here in Bavaria the secrets of making good beer are very tightly guarded."

Rick raised his eyebrows in surprise. At least now he knew where he was. In a beer plant in Bavaria! He was about a million miles from Azerbaijan where the rest of the ODS team was. Did they find the clues he left them? Even if they did, would they understand them? The little remaining hope he had that Michael, Billy, and Casey would come to his rescue evaporated. He would have to get himself out.

"You see," explained the Doktor, "as a matter of fact, a very good place to hide a top secret laboratory is inside a top secret laboratory."

The Doktor resumed walking, leading Rick and the guards down the hallway to a pair of thick double-doors at the end. He unlocked the doors and they entered a small room with another pair of thick double-doors beyond. Large safety signs on the doors showed a pictogram Rick recognized. It indicated the maximum biohazard level. To the left and right were change rooms, marked with signs, male and female.

"And what exactly are you developing in your top secret laboratory?" asked Rick.

"Before we go further," said the Doktor, "we need to shower and change."

Rick raised his eyebrows.

"We can't allow any external contaminants into this lab," said the Doktor.

The guards opened a closet and each one took out a uniform, a plain cotton tunic with a pair of draw-string pants, and waited at the door to the men's change room. The Doktor took out his uniform and riffled through the other uniforms hanging there, searching for one for Rick. Finally, he chose one and handed it to a guard, and sent them into the change room.

After the guards had showered and dressed, they sat on the counter and chatted between themselves waiting for Rick to emerge. Rick listened to them, but they didn't say anything interesting, all he got out of it was that they did not like going into the secret lab they were about to enter.

Rick was glad of the opportunity to wash and soaped up thoroughly, inspecting the scrapes and bruises on his arms and legs. Other than the fact that the GPS unit embedded in his forearm had been broken by the blow to the hotel room's doorjamb, he found only superficial damage. Therefore, if put to the test, he could count on his usual strength and agility. He was exhausted from lack of sleep but he found the shower rejuvenating. He rubbed the days-old stubble on his jaw wistfully. He really could use a shave.

When he came out to towel off he chose a spot beside a sign he'd observed on the way in. It was a safety map of the entire floor with annotations - written in German, of course, but unbeknownst to them, German was among the many languages Rick could read. It showed the layout of the rooms and the locations of all the fire extinguishers, eye wash fountains, fume hoods, walk-in refrigerators, and so on, and most interestingly, all the exits. While he toweled himself off and dressed, Rick discreetly snuck peeks at the map, memorizing it.

Now, if he could just lose the guards he'd be in really good shape, he thought, he knew German and the layout of the lab, both of which they didn't realize, and they had just handed him the perfect disguise. He was surprised at how well the uniform fit, he didn't even have to roll up the cuffs or sleeves like he'd usually have to do. With these clothes on, he'd be inconspicuous.

When Rick finished dressing, he noticed the guards sniggering at him and looked in the mirror. His uniform's pocket was embroidered with the name Gretchen! Drat! Unless _she_ had a severe problem with five-o'clock shadow, it wasn't a perfect disguise. It wasn't quite perfect but it would work fine if he could just get a hold of a lab coat, goggles, and lanyard with a keycard. How hard could that be? Most everyone wearing them looked like wimps.

He exited the change room, followed by the four guards, and met the Doktor at the entrance to the secure laboratory.

"So," said Rick. "You were saying …?"

"Ah, yes," said the Doktor. "I'm about to show you something that will change the course of history! And politics! And the map of the world, no less! If you Americans hadn't been so ignorant and neglected the fine art of fermentation, you might have stumbled across this miraculous little microbe yourselves."

"A microbe? What is it?" Rick was skeptical the Doktor's microbe could change the course of history. The extravagant claim only reinforced Rick's opinion that he was a dangerously whacko lunatic.

"Something new. Something unique. When you see its effects, I think you'll agree its properties are really quite spectacular."

The Doktor opened the lab doors and Rick entered, the guards trailing behind. As soon as he was inside, Rick glanced around, scanning the large laboratory. His eyes darted to the fire extinguisher, the eye wash fountain, the doorways, confirming that everything was laid out exactly as shown in the map.

The Doktor spoke to a young lab assistant, "Rolf, I'm going to need a rat."

Rolf opened a nearby cage and took out the larger of the two white rats inside. He held up the fat contented rat, its beady eyes bright and nose twitching, on his outstretched palm. "I call this one Barley."

"What is the name of the other one?" said Rick, watching the inquisitive rat sniff Rolf's fingers.

"Hops," said Rolf proudly. "They're Barley and Hops."

"Put it back in the cage," said the Doktor, "we're taking the rats into the secure lab."

Rolf's eyes widened and he turned around abruptly. Cuddling the rat, Rolf fumbled with the cage's lock until Rick pressed the lever for him. Without looking up, Rolf set the rat down gently and handed the cage to the nearest guard.

Before passing through another set of imposing double-doors, the Doktor, Rick, and two of the guards, donned airtight hazmat suits with self-contained air-supplies. Rick was given Gretchen's gear. Rick saw that the guards weren't bringing their weapons in and felt much more evenly matched now that there were only two of them and they were unarmed. The bulky hazmat suits with their thick gloves, clunky boots, and helmets would hinder the guards' reaction time, and furthermore one of them was preoccupied with the rat cage.

The next laboratory was jammed with gleaming stainless steel cupboards and counters, jars of chemicals on open shelves, wall-height fume hoods, shining high-power microscopes, and other state of the art scientific equipment. The laboratory was not at all like he had anticipated, in fact, it did not look threatening to Rick. He began to feel more confident. He was well disguised by the hazmat suit, and only outnumbered by one unarmed guard. And he noticed the two guards were very skittish, apparently they were frightened by rats, or by the sophisticated laboratory equipment.

Never underestimate the power of surprise, they'd told Rick often during his hand-to-hand combat training. He kept this advice in mind as he discreetly studied the guards' movements, noting how loosely the lanyards with keycards hung around the necks of their hazmat suits, and surveyed the lab's layout, always keeping an eye on the nearest exit.

The guard set the rat cage on a desk in the center of the room directly in front of a large fume hood. The Doktor took out Barley and dropped him into a glass box about the size of a shoebox inside the fume hood. He opened a nearby incubator cabinet and took out a sealed Petri dish.

"Look at them all," said the Doktor paternally, gesturing to the tightly packed racks of sealed Petri dishes. "I want you to see that I have thousands growing in one cabinet!"

The Doktor put the dish at the far end of the box with the rat. Then he sealed the box, ensuring it was airtight.

"This is the demonstration," said the Doktor. "I want you to pay close attention."

The Doktor pushed his hands into the box through rubber gloves mounted on the sides, allowing him to manipulate the box's contents without breaking the airtight seal.

"Watch," the Doktor said, using pliers to break the lid off the Petri dish. Barley had been happily sniffing the box but within seconds of the Petri dish lid being removed, he squealed, collapsed, and began to wiggle, shiver, and bleed from his eyes and mouth. Rick froze and watched as the rat convulsed in terrible spasms, shrank within minutes into a puddle of blood, bones, and fur, and died. Rick was stunned. None of the NBC weapons he'd studied did this!

"Necrotizing fasciitis," said the Doktor. "Commonly known as flesh-eating disease. You've heard of it?"

"I have," said Rick, gasping. His breath steamed up the hazmat helmet. "But this can't be it. It doesn't spread through the air. It doesn't infect a healthy animal. And it doesn't act that quickly!"

"No," agreed the Doktor. "You're right. This is a variant, a mere tweak of the genome, a little knowledge I gained from the study of fermentation, makes it so very deadly. It spreads through the air. An invisible killer. An incredible weapon! And so cheap to make! I have calculated that a milliliter of cultured agar - an amount so small I can easily get it through airport security to anywhere in the world - could kill the entire population of an island as big as Maui in only one hour."

"Are you planning to do this?" cried Rick. Was this the Doktor's plan? To wipe out vast populations? Perhaps the Doktor had not overstated the ability of his microbe to change the course of history! "Release this in Maui?"

"If I have to," said the Doktor, his calm steely eyes gleaming through the helmet's glossy mask.

"For what purpose? It'll become uninhabitable!"

"Not forever," said the Doktor. "The real genius of this bacteria is they disintegrate in precisely one hour, rendering them completely harmless. Harmless that is, after everyone on the island is already dead."

"You want to kill everyone on the island?"

"No, I don't," said the Doktor, extracting his gloved hands from the box's openings. "I'm not a monster, Mr. Thomas Smith! I don't need to harm anyone if I get what I want. That is where you come in. I am going to set up a live video link and you will talk with your government. I need your connections, whoever you really are, to get the President to negotiate with me."

"Negotiate what?" asked Rick.

"Surrender," declared the Doktor triumphantly. "Full and complete! Nothing less will do."

"You want the USA to surrender to you?" exclaimed Rick, shocked. "When?"

"Tonight," said the Doktor. "You will contact your superiors at the CIA and they will assemble an audience that includes your President."

Rick was flabbergasted by this plan. The Doktor was a complete nutjob if he thought America would surrender to him merely because he had a cabinet full of deadly microbes in Germany!

"So, uh … hypothetically … if they don't surrender?" asked Rick. "What then?"

"They will," said the Doktor, "you'll convince them to. But if you don't, I'll show them a demonstration of my power."

"You want me to convince them to surrender?" asked Rick, incredulous. "Tonight?"

"Yes. And, if you fail to convince them, _you_ will be the rat in the demonstration. There is your incentive to be persuasive! And, if that doesn't work, then a bigger demonstration can easily be arranged."

Rick gawked at the Doktor. He was insane. To die a horrible and grisly death seemed inevitable. And the lives of millions of people were in imminent peril. He had to act!

Before the guards could react, Rick sprang into action, yanking open the incubating cabinet and grabbing a sealed Petri dish.

"What are you doing?" yelled the Doktor, "don't touch that!"

"Stay back!" said Rick, gripping the Petri dish tightly in his gloved hand and holding it like a shield in front of him, inching backwards to the nearest exit.

"Grab him," said the Doktor to the guards. The guards jumped towards Rick and raised their hands, but they didn't dare touch him, afraid of the deadly bacteria.

"Don't come closer," said Rick, brandishing the dish in front of him, "or I'll break it."

"Don't worry, the hazmat suits will protect you," said the Doktor. "Grab him!"

The guards grabbed Rick's arms, immobilizing him, and the Doktor snatched the Petri dish from his hands.

"I shall have to keep you under closer supervision," said the Doktor. "It is useless to struggle because escape is impossible!"

The Doktor was sliding the dish back into the cabinet when he dropped it. It broke on the floor and shards of glass and drops of liquid scattered around. The two guards, Rick, and the Doktor stared in horror at the broken glass and bacteria on the floor, only a few feet from them, until they heard a piercing squeal, and all eyes turned to the rat cage behind them on the desk, where Hops convulsed violently, quivering and shrinking into a bloody heap.

The bacteria were in the air! Only the thin silvery skin of the hazmat suits protected them from a sudden and agonizing death!

Petrified, the guards released their grip on Rick, and he instantly kicked one behind the knee and pushed him into the other. They fell on their hands and knees, too afraid of cracking the helmets on the floor and breaking the airtight seal, to fight back. Rick grabbed a lanyard and keycard off of the nearest guard, and turned and opened the door to a walk-in freezer. He stood in the doorway, posed as if he was about to run into it, and when the guards scrambled to their feet, they charged at him. Rick feinted aside, letting them barrel into the freezer, slammed its door, and jammed the handle to secure it.

Rick turned around towards the Doktor and saw him approaching, wielding a glass shard, inches from tearing his hazmat suit. Rick leaped behind the desk and scanned what was on it, trying to find some kind of weapon with which to defend himself, anything sharp that was within reach, anything that would stop the Doktor in his tracks. He looked down and saw a pen, too blunt; a stapler, too clumsy; a hole punch, too short; a pipette, too far away. Dammit, he didn't have time!

Grabbing a stool, Rick hurled it at the Doktor, who dropped the glass fragment as he dodged it.

While the Doktor knelt to retrieve the deadly piece of glass, Rick turned and ran to the doorway behind him, used the keycard to open it, jumped through and slammed it shut, quickly pushing a heavy centrifuge in its way. He ran to a door on the opposite side of the room but before he got there a warning horn blared - the Doktor had triggered an emergency alarm! The keycard did not open the door. He guessed that all the doors would be secured now. There was no way out. He was trapped!

Fighting panic, Rick visualized the laboratory map in his mind, and explored it. There _was_ another way out!

Rick scrambled into a fume hood and climbed into its air vent. It was just large enough to fit through in the bulky suit, and the bolts in every section provided adequate toe holds. Rick climbed quickly, but carefully, so he wouldn't tear the suit, up the vent, inch by inch, towards the building's roof, directly above the lab. He hoped they wouldn't even notice he was missing until after the hour had passed and they'd found the room he'd been in deserted. He climbed steadily all the way to the top of the vent, where it was sealed by a thick mesh filter.

Crouching in the cramped space and balancing all his weight on his toes, he waited, counting the seconds and minutes off, hoping the oxygen in the hazmat suit would last longer than an hour. His leg muscles trembled from the strain, then ached, then screamed, then threatened to give out completely. He ignored the excruciating pain in his legs and kept his mind focused on counting. After he'd counted off an hour he made himself wait an extra five minutes, for safety, despite the pain in his spent legs and his urgency to get away. Finally he decided it was time. Very nervous, he slowly took off the helmet, careful not to bang it into the noisy metal of the vent. Deafened by continuing clamor of the warning horn , he breathed the air cautiously, and waited, but nothing awful happened. And, compared to the stuffy air of the suit, the hot dusty air of the vent was as sweet as a summer meadow. He breathed deeply, as he peeled off the gloves and boots, and dropped them, and the helmet, as quietly as he could down the vent.

His way out was blocked by a dense fibrous filter, and he clawed at it with his fingernails, pulling tufts of matted fibers out, little by little. Below him, the warning horn suddenly ceased, and he could hear voices in the room below. The doors had been unlocked and the room was being searched!

Rick heard the guards discover his helmet, gloves, and boots and look into the fume hood. Then they were searching for a flashlight. One guard said to the other that Rick was cornered and couldn't possibly get out. A guard climbed into the fume hood and crouched there, peering up the vent. He asked the other guard to get a gun!

As seconds turned to minutes, Rick dug and scraped and yanked at the filter, tearing out prickly handfuls of gray wiry fibers and dropping them into the face of the guard who bellowed at him to give up and come down. Eventually Rick pierced a tiny hole all the way through the tightly woven filter and could jam his fingers in and break off bigger chunks, the ragged edges ripping his fingers painfully. But when he could see through the filter, he found another filter behind it!

The guard squeezed into the vent and began to climb up, shouting threats and banging the noisy metal. In a frenzy, Rick tore away the remainder of the first filter and attacked the second, all the while improving his technique, loosening and ripping out hunks of the sharp fibers more and more rapidly.

The second guard returned and tried to hand a gun to the first guard but instead of taking the gun, he screamed and cursed. The guard was too big for the vent and his arms had gotten stuck at his sides. He couldn't climb up or down, and the second guard dropped the gun to pull on his feet and legs.

Finally Rick hammered his fists through the second filter, and squeezed and contorted his small body through a pair of air-locks and separation chambers, emerging out onto the flat gravel rooftop. Exhausted, Rick fell to his knees, his fingernails broken and hands lacerated, and tore off the rest of the awkward and stifling hazmat suit.

He glanced around the flat gravel rooftop, and saw dozens of bulky vents projecting upwards, which would provide excellent cover, and a doorway, the entrance to the building, still closed. He didn't see anyone else on the roof. Yet.

Creeping across the gravel, Rick slithered on his elbows and belly to the edge of the building and peered over the edge cautiously, so he wouldn't be seen, and confirmed he was ten floors above the ground.

He surveyed the compound surrounding the building. It contained several acres of smaller buildings, gardens, and parked cars. He could see lots of places to hide. This was enclosed by a razor wire fence and surrounded by a thick pine forest. The forest extended all the way to rugged mountainous terrain, possibly the Bavarian Alps. That meant Switzerland would be on the other side of the rocky peaks. But his feet were bare! He'd carelessly thrown away the hazmat boots.

He looked over the edge of the building for a ledge or balcony that he could climb down to or somewhere he could break into a window. Just then two emergency trucks, lights flashing and sirens blaring, drove through the compound's gate and up to the building. Rick ducked out of sight. Going over the edge was now impossible. Rick considered his options, but there weren't enough, he didn't like any! He turned back and crawled towards the vents planning to climb down one to the basement and hide out awhile, and then escape from there. Maybe he'd be able to find some shoes along the way.

Before he reached the vents two guards opened the doorway to the roof, and they immediately spotted him. Rick scrambled to his feet and lunged for the nearest vent, knowing the brawny guards wouldn't be able to follow him into the narrow opening, but they jumped into his path. Rick rolled under a guard, toppling him, but the other one caught him and pinned him to the ground. Rick wrestled fiercely but, outnumbered and severely outweighed, they soon overpowered him.

The guards hauled Rick up and were dragging him to the doorway when he heard a thunderous roar above and glanced up. A black unmarked helicopter hovered directly overhead, descending rapidly. The guards hesitated, buffeted by the tremendous down-draft, and Rick broke free and ran towards the vents.

But before he could reach them, the helicopter landed between him and the vents. Its door opened, and a dozen commandos, dressed in black from head to toe and carrying machine guns, jumped out, and formed a circle around Rick and the two guards. The commando's leader shouted for them to surrender in German.

Panting, Rick stood still, his trembling legs barely able to support him, and raised his hands in the air.

Rick expected the two guards to recapture him but they didn't, they raised their hands too! To Rick's astonishment, Michael, Billy and Casey jumped out of the helicopter. Michael ran to the commandos' leader, who was confused by Rick's laboratory uniform, to explain who he was, while Billy and Casey grabbed Rick by the arms and legs and flung him into the helicopter. As soon as the ODS team was in, the pilot pulled it up, leaving the commandos behind to secure the building.

Squatting in the belly of the helicopter, Billy, Casey, and Michael cheered when it lifted off but Rick sat cross-legged and slumped forward, burying his face in his bleeding hands, overcome by exhaustion and relief.

"Hey, Martinez," said Michael, giving Rick's shoulder a small shake. "You okay?"

Bewildered, Rick shook his head and slowly sat up. "How? How did you …"

"Fritz the Rottweiler," said Casey, picking up one of Rick's hands and examining his injuries. "Once we got your clue, he lead us right here."

"I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you," said Billy, grinning, and putting his arm around Rick's sagging shoulders to support him. "Gretchen, what a pretty name."

Michael fetched a first-aid kit and opened it, digging through the supplies, and Billy cupped Rick's other hand and held it up for Casey to inspect.

"I hope you don't think it's too soon," said Billy, "if I invite you out to dinner, Gretchen."

"Hey, Rick," said Casey, glancing up to see Rick's eyes closed and his head lying limply on Billy's shoulder. "Rick!"

"Rick, you okay?" yelled Michael, dropping the first-aid kit and grabbing Rick's slack face. "Talk to me! Wake up! Rick!"


	6. A Biergarten in Bavaria

Chaos in Jeopardy: Chapter 6: A Biergarten in Bavaria

As the fresh evening air of the Bavarian Alps wafted over the cozy open-air patio of the biergarten, the four business-suited ODS teammates zigzagged past the burly lederhosen-clad patrons towards the only empty seats, in the middle of a long table in the center of the dining area.

Earlier in the day the town's sports team had trounced its rivals in an important match, so the solid planked wooden tables and benches were filled elbow to elbow with revelers in high spirits. The sound of beer mugs being raised in frequent toasts, the lively oom-pah-pah of the local band, the hooting and hollering of the rowdy crowd, and the sight of barmaids in traditional Bavarian dresses with tightly laced elegantly embroidered black bodices and white lace aprons, carrying mugs of beer and delicious platters of food, boosted the already festive mood of the four entering the pub.

His health nearly back to normal, Rick plopped down on the nearest open seat with a thump and rested his elbows on the table, putting his chin on his clasped hands. He had only just been released from the quarantine unit of the local hospital into the care of his teammates and his top priorities were to rest and to eat. His spiky black hair still glistened, dripping wet from the shower, and he welcomed each cool drop as it trickled down the back of his neck and under the stiff collar of his new white dress shirt.

Casey sat down on the bench beside Rick, and Michael sat across from Rick. Billy, the last one to reach the table, spoke to a passing barmaid who soon brought them mugs of beer.

"I could eat a horse," declared Rick, after Billy sat down beside Michael. Rick's empty stomach rumbled at the sight of the overflowing platters of food being delivered to the tables around them. "Give me the menu. I haven't had a decent meal in a week."

"He's already inflating the story!" said Casey gravely, glancing at his watch. "I only lost track of you for three days, 14 hours and 35 minutes. Now, if we don't get our facts synchronized the debrief is going to be a nightmare."

"I'm talking meals," said Rick, counting on his bandaged fingers. "Two days on the stake-out, living on chocolate bars and candy, then two days in the back of the van, just sandwiches, and two days in the plant, which was basically cafeteria food, so, that's six days, nothing good, and then a day in quarantine, you couldn't even call what I got there food, so, that's seven days in all. I have not eaten anything decent for a week." Rick put up his hand to signal the barmaid. "I want a menu _now_."

"Ah, Rick," said Billy, pushing Rick's arm down. "No need, I've already taken care of it."

"Oh?" said Rick, wary of Billy's mischievous grin.

"I've ordered for everyone," announced Billy in his thick Scottish brogue, deep blue eyes twinkling. "The specialty of the region. You'll see. I'm sure you'll find it better than horse!"

"Great!" said Michael, raising his mug of beer. "Cheers everybody!"

Rick, Billy, and Casey raised their mugs, chanted "Cheers!" and drank.

"Ah, the best brew in the world," said Casey, licking the foam from his lips.

"Humph," grunted Billy. "Not the best, not _nearly_ as good as the black bitters of the Scottish highlands!"

Billy sipped from his mug slowly, but Casey, Rick, and Michael drank thirstily.

"It's too cold too," said Billy, frowning, wiping a finger on the mist of condensation on the mug and peering intently at the color of the beer. "They're serving it all wrong."

"Tastes pretty good to me," said Rick, draining his mug.

Casey flagged a barmaid, who soon delivered another round.

"Humph," said Billy. "Naturally you'd say that. You yanks couldn't make a good beer to save your life! Hardly worth drinking the slop you call beer. Oh, how I miss the pure Scottish ales."

Michael, Casey, and Rick were still laughing at Billy's mournful lament when a cheerful buxom barmaid, wearing a bright blue dirndl skirt, black bodice, and scoop necked frilly white blouse, leaned her pleasingly plump bosom over the table as she set out four identical plates of food.

Billy winked at the pretty barmaid, making her giggle, and smiled at the surprised looks on his teammates faces. "The specialty of the region is white sausages and sauerkraut."

Picking up a fork and knife, Rick surveyed his dinner, four fat pale sausages sweating beads of grease surrounded by a heap of gelatinous and malodorous sauerkraut.

"It looks like puke," said Casey, scraping the shredded and fermented cabbage off his sausages. "Smells like it too."

"And these," said Michael, stabbing a sausage, slicing off a bite-sized chunk, and holding it up, "are heart-attacks waiting to happen."

"Shush," said Billy, glancing around at the nearby diners, who were looking at them. "Everyone heard you."

As it happened, the music had ceased just at the moment Casey spoke, and the biergarten buzzed as Casey and Michael's comments, translated from English to German, were being relayed from person to person until everyone had stopped drinking and eating and talking and craned their necks to gawk at the four rude foreigners in business suits who dared _to_ _criticize_ their prized cuisine.

The band put down their instruments, the barmaids stopped serving beer, and everyone hushed and turned to stare at the four interlopers.

Knowing he was under the intense scrutiny of the entire room, Rick sliced off a hunk of pale sausage and dug into the mass of glistening sauerkraut, piling up a huge forkful, and popped it into his mouth.

Every single person in the hushed crowd watched Rick intently to observe his reaction.

It was exactly at this moment when the acidic sauerkraut first made contact with the place inside of Rick's cheek where they had scraped the DNA sample, causing a sharp stinging. Tears began to form in Rick's eyes as he chewed vigorously. He blinked hard and chewed with gusto, valiantly battling the sudden urge to spit out the stinging food.

Billy, Casey, and Michael gaped at the tears in Rick's eyes and wondered if he'd be able to down what they considered a disgusting mouthful. Then, with all eyes in the biergarten trained on him, Rick finally swallowed the bite in one big gulp. Rick set down his fork and smiled beatifically at all the spectators.

"Magnificent!" Rick declared, in perfectly accented German, tears spilling down his cheeks. "The best I've ever eaten!"

The biegarten patrons all released their breaths at once, charmed and delighted by the joyful rapture shown in Rick's high praise and glowing tear-streaked face. They clapped and cheered, coming to the table to shake Rick's hand and thump him on the back until the band resumed playing music, the barmaids resumed passing out beer and food, and the hubbub of the revelers once again drowned out the ODS team's conversation.

"Sauerkraut is good stuff!" said Rick. "Have you tried its spicy Korean cousin, kimchi? Although unusual for someone non-Korean, I also enjoy it very much."

Billy, Casey, and Michael ate their sausages but avoided the smelly sauerkraut. They claimed they weren't very hungry because they didn't want to cause offense by ordering something different. Rick volunteered and eventually ate his way through all the sauerkraut the others didn't eat. Rick ate and ate and ate until every plate was clean.

"I'll have to bring you to Scotland someday," said Billy, "to eat haggis. I'd like to see you try that!"

"I bet I'll like it," said Rick confidently. "Bring it on!"

After they were finished eating, Casey said, "I'm going to write up my report tonight, while it's still fresh in my mind. I suggest that you all do likewise."

"It can wait," said Michael. "I plan to write mine later, after we get back to the office."

Billy and Rick murmured their agreement with Michael.

"Aha!" said Casey. "That means when you desk jockeys are stuck at your computers wracking your brains for the details, I'll be free to go to the gym and get in a few hours of weight training, and some kickboxing, and a practice session of kendo. I'll even have time to buy a new sword for the next tai-kai - tournament, for you ignoramuses - coming up soon. You should try kendo, you don't know what you're missing!"

"I don't know," said Michael, leaning back comfortably. "I think we have a pretty good idea."

"Kendo is a good sport," said Billy, "for _nerds_."

Frowning, Casey promptly stood up. He pressed his hands together as though he were praying, and bowed to them, uttering a few words of Japanese.

"What?" asked Michael. "What are you saying?"

"Roughly translated, it means 'always prepare for the future'," said Casey, "which I humbly recommend."

Putting his hands together, Rick inclined slightly, and replied to Casey in Japanese.

"Huh," grunted Casey, scowling at Rick. "Goodnight all. My report awaits."

After Casey had left, Michael looked at Rick quizzically, "What did you say?"

"I thanked him for his wise advice," said Rick, his eyes twinkling, "and then I offered him a little."

"What a goody two-shoes," said Billy, laughing heartily as he speculated on the nature of Rick's advice. "I think he's hoping for another commendation from Higgins!"

"Maybe," Rick chuckled, "he just wants another free bottle of brandy."

"Cheapskate," said Michael, laughing.

"Then he'll turn around and regift it," said Rick.

"None for me," said Billy when he saw Michael signal the barmaid for more beer. Billy stood up, brushed the crumbs off his vest, and straightened his tie. "I'm going to see what those barmaids over there think of my Sean Connery impression."

"Good luck," said Rick and Michael.

"Don't wait up," said Billy, slinging his jacket over his shoulder jauntily. The group of barmaids giggled and smiled, tucking their blond curls behind their ears, as he walked towards them.

"Rick," said Michael. "I'm glad I've got a chance to talk to you alone."

"Why's that?" said Rick, setting down his mug.

"The mission went wrong," said Michael. "It turned out the trap we set for the fertilizer shipper, which was you, was inside Fritz's trap for us. The shipping intrigue in Baku was a red-herring. I made an error, a grave error. I misread the situation. I want to apologize."

"You don't have to," said Rick. "Don't mention it."

"But I put you in much greater danger than I'd anticipated. I must apologize."

"No, don't," said Rick. "I'm thankful you offered me the chance to prove myself. I'm only sorry I fell asleep."

"Oh, forget it," said Michael. "There's no need to think about that."

"Everything worked out in the end!"

"You saved the world," said Michael. "You did good."

"_We_ saved the world. And that's all we need to remember."

"Well said," said Michael, raising his mug. "Cheers to you."

"Cheers to us," said Rick, clinking his mug with Michael's.

The pleasant evening turned to night, stars twinkling brightly in the clear sky above, as the band played its lively oom-pah-pah music and biergarten's patrons celebrated boisterously around them. Contented and at ease, Rick and Michael ordered more beer and another specialty of the region, Black Forest cake. They ate the thick slabs of chocolate cake drenched with cherry liquor and smothered in whipped cream and cherries until their stomachs couldn't bear the sight of any more food.

"You chose a good place to eat," said Rick, patting his satisfied stomach.

"I'm not so crazy about the entrees," said Michael. "But they do have good beer and dessert."

After they'd relaxed in the delightful atmosphere for a long while, drinking beer and digesting their dinner, Michael's cell phone rang.

"Here," said Michael, after talking for a few minutes. "Higgins wants to speak to you."

"Hello, Higgins," said Rick. "How's it going? Yes, I can hold."

"Oh, man," said Rick to Michael, raising his eyebrows in alarm, "He's going to conference in my mother!"

"Hey, Mom," said Rick brightly. "Hi! Nice to hear from you. So, look, hey, it is kinda late so I gotta go … no, I am not trying to get out of talking to you. It is, in fact, late here. Look it up on a time zone chart on the computer, you'll see. Yes, I am very sorry I didn't call you when our mission went on longer than we expected … I was tied up, really tied up, you know, so busy I couldn't get away to call you. Mr. Higgins knew about the delay."

Rick rubbed his eyes and listened to the phone for a few minutes.

"Mom, you do know that Mr. Higgins can hear what you're saying," said Rick. "No, I am not trying to imply you don't know what a conference call is … yes, I am eating well. Very nutritious. Of course, not as good as your cooking, but good local food. Only healthy fresh stuff. Hey, did I tell you about a scorpion I ate that was so fresh it was still wiggling? … ha ha, of course, Mom, I'm kidding! That's a joke! I wouldn't consider eating one, they're poisonous … yes, and also it's cruel … okay, I know … sure, I will, Mom. First thing I'll do when I get home is walk the dog … no, no, you're right, the _first_ thing I will do is kiss and hug you, and the _second_ thing I will do is walk the dog. Look, I'm just about to hop into bed. Everything's good and I'm fine. I'm okay. Can I go now?"

Rick glanced at Michael, who was about to signal the barmaid, and nodded, and Michael ordered more beer for them both.

"Bye, Mom," said Rick, turning his back to Michael and lowering his voice. "I love you too. See you soon."

_The End. I hope you enjoyed my story. Please leave me a review. I love them, and they help me improve._


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